“I’m thankful that 11 years ago you made the choice to bring Dallas into this world. You were a good teen mom.”
My sis made me cry today on a video chat with those words, and it brought me back instantly to this first feeling holding him. I was so so ignorant about motherhood and couldn’t have managed without the wisdom and love for others.
Pregnancy wasn’t a choice for me the first time. It was a consequence (terrifying at the time) of a thoughtless action. I weighed my options... keep and raise him. abort while he was still a “clump of cells”. adoption.
The few people I told to begin with all had mixed responses. My Dad even humbly offered me money. Not a bribe but a way out in case I needed one. to raise him and let me continue my paid in full academic scholarship and others to the University of Georgia. His paternal grandmother sat across from me at her dining room table (the one we have Christmas breakfast at every year with my entire family). A friend who was a boy told me how his mother almost aborted him, but walked out of the clinic. I couldn’t imagine him not being alive and a big part of my life! A couple of offers came in to drive me to an abortion clinic and help with funding. And tons of people told me I could be a Mother.
I think when consequences come in our life that seem so tragic and no way out, we need to have the freedom to weigh the choices. We need to get back to the roots of our Creator. We need to find an inner strength and know for sure that nothing is unsolvable.
When humans are in pain, it’s easy to want to mask it. Act like nothing happened, and move forward in the same path we were going without disruptions. It’s been my experience that pain and tragedy can paint a beautiful picture... one you can put on display to show others when they have their own empty canvas.
I’m so thankful I chose to give him life. I’m so thankful I was chosen to be his mother. There is not a day I regret. I am thankful for the mothers I’ve been able to look in the eyes and say, fully knowing, you can make the best choice for your baby. Conception alone is such a miracle which can seem flippant to some and deeply anguished over for others.
I believe there is room in the world for every life that is conceived. A baby comes into this world pure and naive; dependent on more than milk and clean diapers… but love has been shown to be what makes a baby thrive. It’s why the painful picture of adoption even has a rainbow of promises for both baby and parents.
I won’t label the choices of abortion, adoption, or raising your baby as good, better, best. Because even choosing life for me was just a good choice at the time that turned out to be the best.
I believe we were all created for purpose. And even when that purpose seems lonely and unsure… even if there’s an easier way out, you can rest in knowing that before anyone knew you, you were known.
“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.” Psalm 139:13-18